


The One with The Jellybeans

by punch_kicker15



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bechdel Test Pass, Community: femslash_minis, F/F, Female-Centric, POV Female Character, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 08:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6230887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punch_kicker15/pseuds/punch_kicker15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU Season 4: Buffy wasn't called until graduation at Hemery High School. When an epidemic of lost cats hits Sunnydale, Buffy seeks help from the girl at the magic shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One with The Jellybeans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kwritten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/gifts).



When Buffy got back from Film Studies, there was a message on her answering machine. “Hi, Buffy, this is Gordon, your TA from Natural Hazards for Poets. Could you stop by my office this afternoon to talk? I’m available from noon to four.”

Uh oh. What could that be about? The whole point of Natural Hazards for Poets was that it was a notoriously easy way to get a science requirement; half the football team was in the class for that reason. No labs, no experiments, no field trips (though a field trip to Hawaii to see volcanoes might have been fun.) The professor’s lectures frequently drifted off into historical and mythological trivia about earthquakes and geysers and tsunamis, and the exams were open-book. Buffy wasn’t even sure why the class needed a TA.

How had her Slayer-friendly class turned into yet another obligation?

***  
On her way to meet Gordon, Buffy caught sight of a lost cat poster. There was a photo of a large fluffy orange tabby, who was named Orlando and was, according to his owners, very friendly. There were a few more posters before it started to register as A Thing, and then Buffy started counting. There were seventeen different cat posters before she reached the office. Her head prickled in a way she’d come to recognize as an instinct that something wiggy was up.

Ford would have said her Spidey Sense was tingling. (And that made her smile, even though thinking about Ford always reminded her of those final days in the hospital, when he was angry and scared and hurting and nothing could comfort him.)

She knocked on the door, and Gordon the TA opened it. He flashed a bright, friendly smile, and then immediately ruined the effect by saying, “I saw you missed last week’s midterm exam. Were you sick?”

Oh, crap. “No, I was just kind of busy, and the week got away from me. Is there any way can do a make-up exam this week?”

Gordon raised his eyebrows. “I’m not sure that’s fair to the other students. But I’ll talk to Professor Lee and see if there’s something we can do for you.”

Patronizing much? But it wasn’t like she could say, _Last week I was tracking down a chaos demon who wanted to enslave the freshman class, or something--I cut off his air supply before he could reveal all the detaily bits of his plan._ To him, she probably looked like a run-of-the-mill frosh screw-up.

***  
After the grovely conversation with Gordon, Buffy spotted an eighteenth lost cat poster and the head-prickles came up again. She sighed, and decided, against her better judgment, to go see Wes at his office at the UC-Sunnydale library.

Wes was in full freak mode when she reached him. “Buffy! Where have you been? Today it’s vitally important to prepare for the crossbow targeting examination.”

“I had class and a meeting with a TA, Wes. What’s the big with the crossbow? I learned how to use it two months ago, and I haven’t missed a target since then. Why do I need more practice?”

Wes sputtered a little, and the little veins on his temple looked like they were going to pop. “The point is that the Council wants to test your fitness, and repetition leads to excellence under pressure.”

If the Council were all a bunch of blowhards like Wes, the hardest part of the exam would be avoiding death-by-boredom.

“I actually have a Slayer-ish thing to talk about,” Buffy said.

“Yes? Have you noticed any new patterns in vampiric activity for me to track?” Wes’s voice went up an octave. Clearly he wanted something to do.

“Um, not vampires, I don’t think. But I’ve been seeing Lost Cat posters all over town, and I just have this feeling--”

“Cats? Really, Buffy, lost cats?” Wes cleared his throat. “I’m sure it’s coincidence, and your feelings are just based in your own sentimentality about pets. If it were something important, I’m sure you’d have a Slayer dream about it. Now let’s get cracking, as they say, on crossbow practice.”

***  
Buffy headed back to the dorms, the muscles under her shoulder blades aching with every step, wondering if there was some way she could get a replacement Watcher. Surely there was someone more competent than Wes. There would almost have to be.

Her phone beeped. It was a text message from Naomi: _Waited at the Espresso Pump for an hour. Really tired of you flaking on me._

Oh, no. Naomi was warm and friendly, and knew Sunnydale like the back of her hand--where to get the best manicures, drink the sweetest mochas, and dance with the hottest boys. It was bad enough that the Slayer thing had already driven away all of Buffy’s dating prospects. Now she couldn’t even maintain a friendship.

Something had to change. She’d figure out what tomorrow morning.

***  
The next morning, a plan came to mind, and she headed to Wes’s office to set it into motion.

"Wes, I had a Slayer dream last night."

"Ah, what did it have to tell you?"

She bit down on her tongue to suppress a giggle. "Well, it wouldn't win any prizes for understandability. But I'm pretty sure that there was a Hawaiian volcano goddess," She racked her brain for the name she'd heard the Natural Hazards professor say. "Tutti Frutti or something like that."

"Tutu Pele?"

Wes might be a pompous jerk, but he did know his academic stuff. "Got it in one. So, the thing was, she seemed to think that there was something oogy about the magic energies there, and she told me it would help if you visited Mount Kilauea for a couple weeks."

"Is there a spell I need to--"

"No!" Since that fiasco a few weeks ago with Wes's clouding spell, she had vowed never to let him get near another one. "It's just your presence that's required. Something about your Watcher energies helping to set things right. You'll need to dress like a tourist and do a lot of touristy stuff to blend in."

"I've never heard of the mere presence of a Watcher helping, but perhaps this is a completely novel threat." A self-satisfied smile crossed his face, then faded a bit. “Are you sure you’ll be alright without me?”

“Positive.” She felt a tiny bit guilty about lying to get him out of her hair, but she was giving Wes a paid vacation to Hawaii. It was probably the most enjoyable wild-goose chase in the history of Watcherdom.

***  
The windows at Mr. Bogarty's shop were boarded up, and there were a few new indentations in the outer walls. Probably a demon attack. (When had she turned into the kind of person who could look at a building and know that? Was that part of the Slayer package from the moment she’d been called?)

When Buffy walked through the door, the girl at the counter announced, "If you're here for a love spell, there's a statewide shortage of canary feathers."

"Um, ok. Hi, I'm Buffy--"

"--oh, so you're the second Slayer everyone's talking about. I'm Anya."

The second Slayer. Yet another reminder that she was just the spare Slayer. That she’d never live up to Nikki Wood. A demon had kicked Nikki in the chest, temporarily stopping her heart, but Nikki was too stubborn to stay dead. Nikki got back up, snapped the demon's neck with her bare hands, and finished her evening patrol, because that’s how hard-core she was. Nikki probably had a useful Watcher.

"Yeah, the second Slayer. Look, I know this sounds crazy, but there are a bunch of lost cats around here, and I think that there might be a supernatural connection."

Anya nodded as if everything made total sense. "Cats have some unusual supernatural energies. They are wildly unpredictable, so it could be someone who doesn't have a clear plan, or someone who just wants disruption."

"Like someone who wants to create a diversion from their real evil plan?" She hadn’t dealt with an evil mastermind before--that might be fun. Or at least a change of pace from the finding-and-killing-demons grind.

"I was going to say 'bored teenagers lashing out', but I like the evil plan diversion theory even better."

Buffy leaned forward, resting her hands on the shop counter. "So how do I find the cats? Is there some kind of spell for that? And someone who can cast it for me?"

"Absolutely. I can get you everything you need, and walk you through the spell. Will you be paying with cash or a credit card?"

Damn, she should have asked Wes for some cash in case of emergencies. She had just enough cash to carry her through the week. She didn't want to explain to her parents why there was a credit card charge for a place with "Magic" in its name. The shuttered windows came to mind. "How about a barter? I can patrol around the shop five nights a week. That could prevent some of the break-ins."

Anya considered this for a minute, then said, "Throw in salvage rights, and you’ve got a deal.”

“Salvage?”

“You know, demon eyeballs, animal viscera, whatever useful magic ingredients we run across.”

***  
Buffy sat cross-legged across from Anya in the back room of the shop, trying not to think too hard about what demon parts were in the giant jars on the shelves. Anya lit candles, sprinkled some powder over a map, and took Buffy's hands in her own.

Anya's hands were really soft and touchable. Warmth rushed through Buffy's hands, up her arms, to the base of her skull. Anya's face glowed with light. Buffy couldn’t stop looking at Anya’s eyes. Were those impossibly perfect eyelashes natural, or the result of some really killer mascara? It took a few moments for them to realize that the light was coming from the map, which meant their kitty locator spell was working.

The light pointed to a house in a residential neighborhood across town.

***  
Buffy could hear meowing half a block before they reached their target: a small brick house with an overgrown lawn. Buffy opened the mailbox, which was overflowing with bills and letters addressed to Emily Benton.

"Are you going to kick the door in?" Anya asked.

"What? No. If it's just some kids playing a prank, there's no need to wreck their door." She knocked on the door.

After what seemed an eternity of waiting, an old lady with a walker answered the door. She smiled sweetly at Buffy.

“Ms. Benton?”

“Yes, how can I help you?” Then as her eyes lit on Anya, the smile disappeared. "No! No servants of D'Hoffryn here!"

The door slammed shut of its own accord. Buffy glared at Anya. "What was that about? Servant of who?"

"No idea. Maybe I look like someone else she knows." She peered at Buffy expectantly, clearly gauging whether Buffy was buying her story.

Buffy gave her the stare she used to intimidate demons.

"Ok, I used to be one of D'Hoffryn's justice demons."

"Used to?" Her shoulders hunched up as she waited for the answer.

Anya sighed. "Nikki Wood destroyed my power center, just because I granted a teeny-tiny vengeance wish against her stupid son's stupid best friend. He totally deserved it, but she had to make me a lowly mortal human anyway."

The knot in Buffy's shoulders eased. Not even Wes, Mr. Follow-Your-Sacred-Calling, had demanded that Buffy fight or kill _former_ demons.

"All right, let's try again, but follow my lead."

She knocked on the door again. Maybe she would have to kick it in--the old lady had seemed pretty spooked by Anya.

The door opened and Ms. Benton peered out. “How can I help you?” Then she looked at Anya. "No! No servants of D'Hoffryn here!" The same tone of voice and inflections as before, with no indication of their conversation two minutes ago.

Buffy was suddenly reminded of her Great-Aunt Helen. "It's all right. She's not a demon now."

Anya said, "It's true! Read my aura and you'll see."

The lady squinted at Anya, and then nodded, apparently satisfied with what she'd seen. "How can I help you girls?"

"We're looking for some lost cats."

Anya chirped, "And we found them," waving a hand towards the living room, where several dozen cats sat on tables, chairs, the couch, and bookshelves. A few perched on the windowsill, looking out to the back yard.

One large orange tabby twined around Buffy’s legs, meowing insistently. Orlando. He really was friendly.

***  
“Would you like some jellybeans?” Ms. Benton motioned towards the bowl on the coffee table.

“No, thanks.” Buffy squirmed on Ms. Benton's sagging couch, in a vain attempt to find a spot where there weren’t broken couch springs. “I couldn’t help noticing you’ve got a cat invasion here.”

"It gets a little quiet here sometimes. Witchcraft was always my first love, so I never had time to start a family. Sometimes I do a little spell to attract the neighbor’s cats to my house." Ms. Benton scritched the ears of the Siamese sitting on her lap. "I only do it once a day and it’s a temporary spell. It wears off in a few hours. Oh, and I do a harmonious commingling spell, so they don't fight. I hate to see them fight."

“Do you use canary feathers for harmonious commingling?” Anya asked.

“Yes, I modified a love spell--” she coughed.

Buffy seized the opportunity to snoop around the house a little more. "Let me get you some water." She kicked Anya in the ankle as a hint.

“Ow!” she yelped. “You injured me.”

"Come in the kitchen and help me."

“Why do you need help getting a glass of water?”

She grabbed Anya’s wrist, and dragged her into the kitchen, which was eye-poppingly green. Avocado green, with orange and brown accents. Clearly Ms. Benton hadn't remodeled since the 1970's. Just like Great-Aunt Helen.

There were two bowls of jellybeans on the counter, one on the kitchen table, and one, inexplicably, on the stove.

Buffy whispered, "I think I know what's happening. She's getting senile, and she keeps casting the kitty attractor spell over and over, because she forgets she's already done it. My aunt got like this, only it was like cooking dinner multiple times in a day, instead of magic."

Anya nodded. "We need to call a coven to bind her powers."

***

Right before the team from the Sisters of the Holy Flame led Ms. Benton away, Buffy approached one of the older witches and asked, "Is she going to be all right?"

The witch looked away from Buffy. "If she survives the binding process, yes."

If. Funny how one little word could break Buffy's heart.

As they walked out the house. Anya nudged her. "What's wrong?"

Buffy closed the door, and scooped Orlando up in her arms. "It's just, she has these powers, so she couldn't really connect with people, and she ended up old and so alone that nobody even noticed that her mind had gone on the fritz. I can't seem to hang onto friends with this Slayer gig. Is that how it's going to end for me?"

Anya kissed her softly. "I don't think so."

"No?" Buffy asked, when she could catch her breath again.

"Definitely not. You're a Slayer. You'll be killed by a demon or an apocalypse long before you go senile."

With that cheerful pronouncement, she slung Ms. Benton's bag of canary feathers over her shoulder and walked away.


End file.
